YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Unless you're in the "industry" y'all may not recognize the name Bill Gerber, but he's a player in the heated Hollywood world and likely you've seen a few movies he's produced.

Mister Gerber got his start in the music bizness where he oversaw the careers of 1980s superstars like Devo, The Cars, ABC, and one of Your Mama's favorite 80s new wave bands Heaven 17. Eventually Gerber went into the film business and has supervised and produced films such as Goodfellas, You've Got Mail, Queen of the Damned, and the Jessica Simpson train wreck The Dukes of Hazzard.

This property, located north of Sunset in desirable Brentwood Park was purchased by Gerber and his wife Eve in June of 1987 for just $1,401,000. The couple have recently put the house on the market with the venerable Westside Estate Agency for an even $11,000,000. Can y'all hear the cash registers ringing and the Gerber's accountants cheering and jumping up and down?

The Cape Cod style house sits on just under half and acre of prime property and the place has clearly had a nice gay decorator up in the house doing a bang up job. Traditional, even casual traditional, is not normally our cup of tea, but this place really works for us.

Before we give the rave reviews, let Your Mama tell you want we have issues about. All of our problems are at the front of the house. The first is the garage. We like a garage to park the fancy cars just like anyone else with fancy cars, but there's something unappealing and, frankly, low class about driving through the gates of an $11,000,000 house and being confronted with a big and ugly garage door. We are also not feeling that red concrete driveway. We would recommend a gravel or crushed granite driveway to really give the place an East Coast feel. The sound of an expensive car slowing driving over gravel is one of the best sounds in the world. And of course, we are not so into the play structure in the front yard. If you must have one, we really feel they belong in the back yard. But then, Your Mama has dogs, not children.

Now on to the good stuff. Whom ever it is that picked the rugs for this house did and exquisite job. Every rug is perfectly sized and colored for the room. And even though dark floors are not the new and exciting thing any more, we love them against all the white walls. We know that many people like warm and creamy colored walls, but Your Mama goes weak in the knees over beautifully painted white walls.

The formal living room with the dark floors, white sofas and what we imagine was a ridiculously expensive rug are spectacular. We are peeing over the wall of french doors and the glossy white paint on the ceiling.

Ordinarily we turn our nose up at wallpaper, even the new fangled modern stuff. But we're loving the toile patten that looks like it's been tea-dyed in the dining room. The table and chairs we are not loving, but there's something about the chandelier which we're grooving about. Might be that it's sort of wagon wheel like? Again, the muted and likely obscenely expensive rug is perfection.

The kitchen also works for us, although we'd rip that pot rack down lickety split. We just don't like those things. We don't care how much you paid for your copper cookery, we think pots and pans belong behind closed doors unless they're being used. Love the Carrera marble counter tops. Love the double dishwashers, the dark floors and the big Viking range.

The master bedroom is mammoth and probably larger than we would personally like, but it's nicely done, again with a gorgeous rug. The fireplace is a nice feature as is the huge bathroom with the separate vanities with the dark framed mirrors. Perfect for a vain couple who do not want to brush their teeth and pop their pimples next to each other. The white floors? Heaven.

The listing states the screening room, located in a detached building in the back yard, has been published. We imagine so, as it's very "done." The striped curtains are not our favorite thing, but we get the repetition of stripes in there as a somewhat subtle motif. Love the drum set in the corner.

How rich do you have to be to have your own Pilate's studio? Imagine what the equipment alone costs not to mention the cost of a trainer to come to your home to bend, stretch, and contort you into a pretzel all in the interest of having long lean muscles and a rack of size two dresses.

We expect this house will be shown so much the Gerber's will want to lease a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in order to get some peace and privacy. We also expect this property will go pretty quickly despite the lack of a tennis court.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I have no idea why but I really like this place. For anyone who watches Entourage on HBO may agree, this home has a sort of Ari Gold vibe to it. I would love to see some 20th century modern furniture in here, like some George Nelson, Arne Jacobsen, etc. I have a weak spot for traditional homes with white walls and black floors that are furnished very modern, sort of like what Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston did in their Wally Neff before the dee-vorce.